Dear List,
If I can gently steer you back to the theme of open source and open
systems, firstly I'd like to thank everyone for a very lively debate in
April, and to say that do feel free to continue through May if you'd
like to (our next formal Theme isn't till June).
I'm back from FutureSonic festival, many themes of open systems came
up, which really highlighted the connections between some of the issues
mentioned recently on this list, namely:
The tension between technical knowledge and the time to learn new
things.
The tension between quantity and quality (too many 'friends' on
Facebook becomes meaningless and unmanagable, 'death by peer review'
versus the individual).
The tension between or 'the tyranny of structureless', and being
bossy/directive/structured.
This last tension was something that came up for the CRUMB workshop at
the festival, which consisted of hostessing "knowledge dating for media
bliss". For example, the Open structure of Node London was very
productive, but as Chun Lee points out, the open system had its
problems, which, to be fair to Node, is discussed in an admirably open
way on their web site. Many open systems of production tend to
privilege those who are most confident, who have the most skills
already, and who are already know a lot of people in the network.
Newcomers tend to have more problems, and as matchmaking is quite a
directive thing, I'm afraid our system was not very open, but was quite
bossy in making introductions. We also made it a point to 'talk to
strangers', and to target people who were lurking on the edges, or were
alone (hopefully not as sinister a tactic as it sounds!)
So, is there a balance to be struck between 'the tyranny of
structureless' and the tyranny of the matchmaker?
Yours,
Beryl
>> Also
>> NODE:London is an open organisational model
>>
>> In order to raise the visibility of media arts practice in and around
>> the capital, NODE.London [Networked, Open, Distributed, Events.
>> London] has worked as an open organisation, using consensus decision-
>> making and pooling ideas, resources and even people. It has sought to
>> fortify existing media arts networks and to encourage production and
>> experimentation, whilst assisting in the articulation of such
>> innovative artistry to a wider audience.
>>
>> http://www.nodel.org/
>> http://wiki.nodel.org/index.php/Main_Page
>>
>>
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Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art
School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
Ashburne House,
Ryhope Road
Sunderland
SR2 7EE
Tel: +44 191 515 2896 [log in to unmask]
CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
http://www.crumbweb.org
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Beryl Graham, Professor of New Media Art
School of Arts, Design, Media and Culture, University of Sunderland
Ashburne House,
Ryhope Road
Sunderland
SR2 7EE
Tel: +44 191 515 2896 [log in to unmask]
CRUMB web resource for new media art curators
http://www.crumbweb.org
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